Cellular communication networks evolve towards higher data rates, improved capacity and coverage. In the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardization body, several technologies have been and are also currently being developed.
LTE (Long Term Evolution) is a recent standardised technology. It uses an access technology based on OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) for the downlink and Single Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) for the uplink. The resource allocation to wireless terminals (also known as user equipment, UEs) on both downlink and uplink is generally performed adaptively using fast scheduling, taking into account the instantaneous traffic pattern and radio propagation characteristics of each wireless terminal.
However, available resources benefit from being used as efficiently as possible, particularly in the case when a wireless terminal requests access to the network. It would be beneficial if there were to be a way in which requests for access to the network are prioritised in a better way than in the prior art.